"Yes, still," he replied hanging his head; "but he does not love me."
"What makes you suppose so?"
"I am only too certain of it, sir: ever since you took him on the prairies, his character has completely changed. The ten years he spent away from me have rendered him completely indifferent."
"Perhaps it is a foreboding," the adventurer remarked in a hollow voice.
"Oh, do not say that, sir," the other exclaimed with horror, "musing is a bad counsellor: I was very guilty, but if you knew how deeply I have repented of my crime—"
"I know it and that is the reason why I pardoned you. Justice will be done, some day, on the real culprit."
"Oh, sir, and I tremble, wretch that I am, at having been mixed up in this sinister history, whose denouement will be terrible."
"Yes," the adventurer said with concentrated energy—"very terrible indeed! And you will help in it, Loïck."
The vaquero gave a sigh, which did not escape the other.
"I have not seen Dominique," he said, with a sudden change of tone; "is he still asleep?"